1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a human torso phantom for modeling and imaging cardiac and respiratory motion.
2. Related Art
The goal of creating a torso phantom is to have an anthropomorphic tool for research of cardiac and respiratory motion in nuclear (e.g., single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET)) imaging, x-ray computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and in radiation therapy apparati. The most popular tool used for this purpose in nuclear cardiac imaging now, Jaszczak dynamic phantom, described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,629,469, hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, has a rigid torso and lungs thus it cannot model respiratory motion. Also, the heart in the Jaszczak phantom is made in such manner that it cannot reproduce the twisting motion of the left ventricle. A recently presented phantom developed at URobotics Laboratory at John Hopkins University claims to model respiration but does not complement it with heart motion (Poster presentation M06-355 by Kenneth H. Wong et al, IEEE MIC 2006. <URL: http://www.nss-mic.org/2006/>.
Thus, there is a need for a human torso phantom which models human cardiac and respiratory motion.